


Together, In This World, Right Now

by MirandaHamilton



Category: I Medici | Medici: Masters of Florence (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Angsty but hopeful, Deep emotional connection, Francesco should be the first tagged character i promise, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Jacopo is mentioned but isn't actually in it, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Modern AU, Modern AU - College Setting, Pills, Talking, Tender Sex, i know i surprised myself too, not hate sex, rated M mostly for the alcohol and the pills, the tags are being weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:28:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26626729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirandaHamilton/pseuds/MirandaHamilton
Summary: Francesco and Giuliano are unlikely confidantes but one special, emotional night, they find what they need in each other.
Relationships: Francesco de’ Pazzi/Giuliano de’ Medici
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	Together, In This World, Right Now

Francesco Pazzi and Giuliano de’ Medici are hanging out.

Well, sort of. Maybe?

But if sitting alone together in Francesco’s dorm room, talking (both of them) and drinking (Giuliano) while everyone else is at the bar qualifies as “hanging out,” then they might even be friends now. And they might want to be.

And they might want to do some things together that will redefine what Francesco considers perfection.

***

It’s Sunday night, and it started like this.

“My brother has an obsession…no, what’s a stronger word than ‘obsession?’ A full-on _mania_ for rings. Look.” Guglielmo plucks up Francesco’s hand from the table and holds it up. “He went to the jewelers the other day to get this ring right here re-set. And I’m hanging in his dorm and what happens when he walks in? I look and he has the ring re-set, but he’s also wearing _four new ones._ ” Guglielmo reaches for Francesco’s other hand, but Francesco has it wrapped firmly around his wine glass, so Guglielmo has to make do with the hand he’s already commandeered. He shakes it, grinning. “Can you deal with him?”

Francesco wrests his hand gently back from Guglielmo and wraps it around the wine glass. He leans back in the booth. He can tell that the others are watching curiously for his reaction, are even leaning slightly away from the booth and slightly towards him. Which makes him want to crawl out of his skin so he had better come up with something witty, and fast. So he calculates it, then smiles. “You don’t have to deal with me, Brother. You’re too busy dealing with your apology to the music department that rejected you before you even applied.”

The table, minus Francesco, bursts and bubbles into laughter at that. Earlier in the week, Guglielmo had added Francesco to the group chat (without asking Francesco first). The first item that had popped up in the chat was a video of Guglielmo and Bianca drunkenly singing a power ballad at karaoke, _slurring_ being a more accurate term than _singing_. The chat is currently named, “#Guglianca: FlorentineIdolHereWeComeBabyyyyy.” Francesco had watched about five seconds of “Guglianca” before closing the chat and then turning off his phone.

The truth is that it wasn’t so much their off-key singing and drunken laughter that annoyed him – it was watching them hang off each other and the newly coined term “Guglianca” that had irritated him in a way that scratched at a cavern wall of his loneliness, the empty chamber of his heart where an emotional blood flow is desperate to reach and fill, but has nothing to guide it.

Guglielmo and Bianca have been attached at the hip for about a month now, to mutual Medici and Pazzi shock (and dismay - Francesco managed to yell louder than Guglielmo and Jacopo were screaming at each other and quelled the blowup by making Guglielmo promise never to bring Bianca home or take her near the Pazzi bank; he doesn’t know what kind of scene occurred in the Medici home, but given the smudges of mascara still clinging to Bianca’s under-eyes the first time he’d seen her the day after the great announcement, it hadn’t been her favorite day ever). Francesco had tried to grill Guglielmo a few weeks ago about whether Bianca’s parents’ attitude has softened, but Guglielmo had turned immediately sullen, scrunched his mouth up, mumbled _You_ adults. _You all can’t leave us alone, can you?_ , and not returned Francesco’s texts for a full twenty-four hours. Until suddenly he came bursting into Francesco’s dorm the next day and announced that after his exams, he and Bianca were going to spend a week in Rome.

_You’re the one leaving me alone this time,_ Francesco had said in his best plaintive tone.

Guglielmo had rolled his eyes. _Fine. You can come with us, but you can’t spend literally any time with us._

Which Francesco knew was a joke, but he’d had a dream that night that he was walking with Guglielmo and Bianca in the streets of Rome, but trailing behind them and physically unable to catch up. He’d kept wishing some hazy and unknown man would reach out to him, pull him along to reach the others, then pull him firmly into his arms. But he didn’t exist, not even in Francesco’s dreams, which stung in a special way that he still feels bruising him weeks later.

So he’d said _No._ when Guglielmo had begged him to come to the bar to hang with the Medici crew this Sunday night, both to get one more kick before senior finals (Francesco and Lorenzo) and junior exams (Guglielmo and Giuliano) and to officially bring Francesco back into the Medici fold. Knowing that two couples, Guglielmo and Bianca, and Lorenzo and Clarice, would be there had rubbed a raw patch next to his bruise. It had twisted his stomach in yearning for the barest touch of another hand on his own, one that he knew wasn’t going to find him no matter how hard he dreamed. 

Guglielmo had pleaded. _Please. It would make us all so happy. It would make_ me _so happy. Don’t you love me?_

Francesco hates it when Guglielmo uses this tactic of _don’t you love me_ on him. It’s a full-throttle ambush and it works every time, because yes, Francesco would throw himself in front of a train for his brother. As much as Guglielmo annoys him and with gusto sometimes, he’s the only person that makes Francesco feel tethered to the world in a sense that whispers _As lonely as you are, you belong here if only for him._

So here he is.

His remark about Guglielmo’s decided lack of musical aptitude seems to have gone over well, as everyone settles back and reaches for their drink again. Clarice gestures to Francesco’s hands and smiles warmly at him. “Your rings are beautiful, and I’m so glad you’re in the chat now, Francesco. And even happier you came tonight.” Apart from Bianca, Clarice was the only one of the bunch to hug Francesco when he arrived. Although he didn’t enjoy the hug, he knows to objectively appreciate it, and to respect Clarice’s efforts to include him.

“Please keep coming into the chat, we’ve been so happy to see your name.” She now smiles apologetically at him before turning a faux-annoyed gaze at Lorenzo. “I’m only sorry my fiancé here feels the need to share _every single poem he writes_.”

“Oh, come on.” Lorenzo squeezes her shoulder and pulls her closer to him, kissing her temple. “Everyone knows I missed my calling as a creative writing major.”

“More like the calling read what he wrote and ran away screaming,” Sandro adds, which causes Lorenzo to shove his shoulder and that ubiquitous bubbling laughter to erupt again.

Francesco remembers a few times when Lorenzo shoved him in the shoulder when they were kids. It feels like a million years ago, although Francesco has actually seen plenty of Lorenzo the past four years. Both being economics majors (just like their younger brothers), they’ve taken quite a few classes together and moved in the same circle of students and professors. When Lorenzo speaks in class, it’s not so much that he acts like he’s smarter than everyone else. It’s just that an aura of _I’m basically already a de facto high ranking bank official even though I haven’t graduated yet, so I learned all this ages ago and I’m sharing my wisdom, you’re welcome_ bleeds into his words.

_I ignore him outside of class_ , Francesco tells Jacopo when they talk on the phone.

_Good_ , Jacopo says. _He doesn’t truly hold an official position yet. His name isn’t even on the employee roster. I’ve made inquiries. He’s bluster and pomp. Challenge him whenever he makes a speech._

So they’ve verbally sparred a few times in class (and not acknowledged each other in the halls) and Francesco is never completely sure who’s pulling ahead in the race – just that he’s learned it’s useless to try to puncture a hole in Lorenzo’s overconfidence complex. The best thing he can do is make it obvious to the other students that Lorenzo has one. Shining every light he can to other people on the Pazzi bank instead is his own de facto job and will become a full time one once he’s officially graduated. He’s good at it, and that’s the way it should be.

“No, Clarice is right,” Lorenzo says with a wave of his hand and a wry smile at Francesco. “It’s good to talk to you outside of the classroom. You belong in our group. It’s your group now, too. I want you to know that.” He raises his glass to Francesco, and then around to the others. “To all of us being united in friendship, no matter what bank we belong to. Companionship transcends money. Although as seniors who have to take finals next week, the bill is not on Francesco and me. Sandro, you’re excused on the grounds of being a starving artist even though my family commissions you every other day. But you’re a junior, Guglielmo, and you’ve graduated, Bianca. We’re having one on _you_. I don’t make the rules.”

Guglielmo groans but holds up his glass and clinks it with the others. “Brat,” Bianca mutters at Lorenzo, but she’s smiling. She turns to Francesco and clinks her glass against his. “Thank you for being here,” she whispers. “It means a lot to Guglielmo and me. Truly. Welcome back.”

“It’s a pleasure,” Francesco tells her. He genuinely does like Bianca. She’s sweet and smart and she makes Guglielmo radiate sunshine and rainbows. Francesco knows that he’s a good brother for supporting them. He just isn’t sure if being actually happy for them is included in that package. Which means, of course, that he knows it isn’t. Feeling alone was more bearable when Guglielmo only casually dated but always ended up drifting away from the girlfriend and back to Francesco to hang out. Their “just us” nights at the bar or the mall or only watching TV never actually completely stuffed up his loneliness cavern and let the starving blood inside, but it backed him far enough away from the edge so that he forgot how deep it dropped.

A waiter comes by and takes refill orders. Francesco hasn’t drunk much of his wine so he doesn’t need one. He wonders when an appropriate time to leave would be. He’s not worried about how late it is – he trained himself long ago to be able to sleep three or four hours after studying for five or six and still ace any test – but he feels tired in a way that he hasn’t in a long time. Despite being squished into a booth with five other people and officially being part of their group chat, there’s something about their desperation to include him that makes him feel all the more excluded, all the more the outsider. He feels like a puzzle piece that gets jammed repeatedly into another even though the person putting the puzzle together already knows it won’t fit, but they try again anyway.

Maybe it’s because he’s not used to having friends, never mind being in a group of them. He’s been part of various study groups over the years but always being the last person to leave the library, still sitting at a long table at ten o’clock with five books propped open in front of him (he mastered the art of switching rapidly between multiple ones long ago), doesn’t encourage people to bother inviting you out after a certain time has passed. And that time passed rather quickly with the study group in his freshman year, the nail decidedly beaten into the coffin as the other guys had been leaving for the bar one Friday night in early fall. He’d overheard one of them say _I’ll bet you a hundred bucks he’s never gotten laid, drunk, or high, and never will_ – to the agreement of another guy who said, _He probably only gets off when he reads his own papers back to himself. He’s fucking frigid, I’ll bet you_ all _the money in his bank. It’s actually kind of creepy._

He feels a pinching feeling in his heart at the memory.

The bank has been calling him his whole life, and he’s been gladly answering, and he will challenge _anything_ to completely distract him, so he’ll get by. He always has. That has to be enough.

“Francesco?”

He turns abruptly. Bianca is still looking at him. Squinting, actually. “Are you okay? You looked lost there, for a second.”

Her words aren’t mean, of course, but he bristles inside. Francesco Pazzi does _not_ get lost. “I was remembering things,” he says. “How much I’ve missed this.” He thinks. _Say something nice to her_. “I don’t mind buying a round, by the way.”

“Well I’ll take you up on it, then.” Giuliano slides into the booth next to Lorenzo before Francesco can even tell which direction he came from.

“If you’re not a senior, you have to pay up,” Lorenzo says as he claps Giuliano on the shoulder and the others raise their voices in greeting. “You’re terribly late, you know.”

“Am I? Well, time flies when you throw it down in the library. I had a breakthrough. Did you know you can get high by inhaling the pages of fifty-year-old books? My dealer is going to miss me. Hi, by the way.” He nods at Francesco. “Good to see you let yourself get sucked back in.”

Everyone immediately raises their voice in protest. Lorenzo grabs Giuliano’s wrist and whispers sharply in his ear and Bianca crinkles a napkin and throws it at him. Francesco glances at Guglielmo, who winces and shrugs apologetically, mouthing _It’s Giuliano, what do you expect?_

“Alright, alright.” Giuliano puts up his hands. “I’m sorry. I just haven’t had a proper conversation with him since I was what, seven? I’m shy.” He faces Francesco. “So. How’s the bank?”

“Oh, Giuliano.” Clarice lays her hand on his. “Please. No bank talk.”

“ _Giuliano_.” Lorenzo’s voice has a note of warning. “Tonight is about famil-”

“The bank is great.” Francesco feels the startled stares on him, but if Giuliano wants to play, well, game on, it’s better than the plastic pleasantries he’s been churning out over the past half hour. “There was an article about us published in the paper today. I’m sure you have email notifications about us turned on, you probably saw it before I did.”

Giuliano raises the beer the waiter puts down in front of him. “Interesting. I can’t remember how many articles about our bank were published today, just that we didn’t have to commission them. Your email is probably clogged.”

Francesco smiles at him and raises his own glass. “I don’t subscribe, but even if I did, I don’t check my junk folder.”

The silence falls like an axe.

Francesco sips his wine and leans back in the booth. Even though he’s aware that he’s just cut up the fabric of the happy tapestry the others have been weaving all night, he feels better than he has since he walked in the door. Giuliano is staring at him with narrowed eyes but there’s a slight twitch of his mouth to one side. Francesco notices that Giuliano didn’t get dressed up for tonight, isn’t wearing a blazer like Lorenzo, button-downs like Sandro or Guglielmo, or a black, dry-cleaned dress shirt like himself. He’s wearing a jean jacket with a plain t-shirt underneath, and Francesco can see his sneakers from the angle he’s sitting at. He can’t tell what brand they are, and they’re scuffed. It figures. Medici wealth to the high heavens but dressing like he doesn’t own a credit card.

It’s kind of charming.

So is his combination of deadly eyes and amused mouth.

Which makes Francesco feel a sudden heat inside, like his blood temperature has just been turned up a few degrees. Which is disturbing. It’s not like he hasn’t seen Giuliano around campus – even though he’s a year behind Francesco and Lorenzo, he’s still an economics major and sometimes turns up in familiar classrooms to talk to professors, or even in, truly, the library (although usually on his phone rather than reading the book in front of him). He’s even heard, over the years, about Giuliano’s “no reasons” parties, the kind that are founded on occasions that are not special (“Chapter two was long but I finished it in one sitting – shots are on me”), but that are excuses to get wasted and so never die in popularity. And it’s not like he hasn’t been hearing about Giuliano for a month either, Guglielmo frequently chit-chatting about Medici goings-on while Francesco has suffered in silence.

But that suffering was more comfortable than the one he feels now, and he’s saved from having to stare down Giuliano in this most peculiar frame of mind by his phone buzzing in his pocket. He automatically slides it out because it might be _that_ email he’s been expecting and even Giuliano de’ Medici can’t scramble his priorities.

Francesco usually hates it when people use their phones at the table. But he’s been losing sleep over this since Friday, and he’s just ruined the gang’s night, so he can’t do much further damage.

“Trivia!” Sandro finally cracks the silence Francesco had walled everyone up in. “Someone over there just said trivia is starting. Let’s do trivia.”

“Yes! Let’s! We have to move to a closer table. Shall we?” Bianca claps her hands. “Babe?” She turns to Guglielmo.

Francesco realizes, even as he subtly tries to enter his passcode, that he hasn’t looked at Guglielmo once since his back-and-forth with Giuliano. He glances over at him now.

It wouldn’t be fair to say that Guglielmo has daggers in his eyes. Daggers are angry. These knives are blunt and they don’t shine, but they point right at Francesco and they don’t move. They whisper, _Why? This was your_ welcome back. _This was for_ you.

Francesco feels something hard and heavy hit his heart like a gong at the knowledge that he hurt his brother. He opens his mouth and Guglielmo immediately turns to Bianca and kisses her cheek. “Team Guglianca forever, babe. Let’s go.”

“Alright. Let’s do it.” Lorenzo slaps his palms on the table and rises, hauling Giuliano to his feet as he does so. “Participation is required of you this time, you know. Moral support between beers doesn’t cut it, and you sound terrible when you try to cheer.”

“That’s not fair. I tell you you’re fabulous all the time and you never complain. Anyway I told you, I just came from the library. I deserve a beer without mental taxation. I’ll be over later.”

They’re the last words that Francesco registers before he’s finally logged into his school email and repeatedly taps the unread message at the top until it loads. It’s from his trigonometry professor regarding the score of the final he took on Friday. He’d taken it on a school computer as required but as he’d finished the last question and hit the “submit” button, the screen had gone blocky and different colors had flashed before a stomach-churning _click-clack_ sound came from somewhere inside it and it went dead. The nerves already percolating in his stomach at anticipating his score had buzzed like a beehive as his professor had tried to restart the computer, to no avail.

 _I don’t know what happened, but if you already submitted the test, the result was probably recorded and I’ll be able to retrieve it eventually_.

Francesco had tried not to let his swallow be visible. _Eventually?_

 _Probably Monday. I’ll have the tech staff work on it over the weekend. Francesco, you know it’s going to be an excellent score regardless though, right?_ She’d squinted at him. _You could fail this test and still get an_ A. _Your work has been superb all semester._

He could hear the unspoken words: _This is an elective you didn’t even need. You could get a grade just above failing and still graduate with highest honors._

He had imagined his words back to her: _I’m going to run a bank someday. There is no such thing as too many math courses. You know who I am, right?_

So it didn’t take until Monday after all to get his score. He inhales the message with his eyes more than reads it:

_Francesco – you got 49 out of 50 correct. Excellent job as always. See you at graduation._

That’s it.

And that’s all it takes for the nausea to rise like a reverse waterfall up, up, up his chest.

_How_ did he get one wrong? He’d triple-checked his answers. Which one did he get wrong? How did he get one wrong? What tripped him up to get the ugly number _forty-nine_ instead of the beautiful, round, sumptuous _fifty_? _How did he get one wrong?_

He lays his phone shakily on the table and his vision swims. _How did he ge-_

“Forty-nine out of fifty. Well, that’s a true over-achiever’s grade. Congratulations.”

Francesco whips his head up and jerks his body around. Giuliano, true to his word, has stayed behind at the table, and is alone with Francesco. At some unknown point he has scooted around the booth close enough to Francesco to look down at his phone screen.

Francesco grabs his phone from the table with such force that his wine glass wobbles. Giuliano reaches out a hand to steady it. “Whoah. Hey. You know I just said something nice to you, right?”

Francesco swears at him, shoves his phone in his coat pocket, and lurches out of the booth. He cranes his neck until he sees his brother and the Medici gang at a different table, clapping and laughing as they presumably play trivia. His vision is still blurry at the corners of his eyes as he fumbles with his wallet and draws out a few bills. He leans over Guglielmo’s seat and lays the money next to his hand. “Guglielmo. I’m leaving.” A rasp strains in his voice.

Guglielmo glances over his shoulder. He has one arm wrapped around Bianca and he doesn’t move it as he gazes at his brother. There’s no anger in his eyes. There’s not much of anything in his eyes, truly, and that makes it so, _so_ much harder to bear. Francesco’s heart throbs, then kicks, then sinks. _I’m sorry_ , he mouths.

Guglielmo nods at the same time he turns his head back to the table, not meeting Francesco’s eyes.

Francesco’s walk back to campus is less than a minute, but each second feels like a labor, like a steep stair he has to climb. It’s warm out. He didn’t really need to bring a coat. But it’s his favorite bespoke one, and so are the heavy three-figure boots he’s wearing, and he took his time picking his rings out because he wanted to feel some sense of normality tonight. It would be nice to go shopping right now, pick out even just one new ring. He tries to force these banal thoughts to swallow a slew of memories skittering to the forefront of his mind like leaves that should be dead, but are all too alive.

When he was about eight, around the time he and Guglielmo had moved in with Jacopo, he had spent a lot of time playing around on the computer Jacopo specially gifted him. There had been a fun math game that he’d stayed up too late one night trying to master and in class the next day he was unprepared for a history quiz. He scored about 40% and his teacher had told him he needed to take the quiz home to be signed off on by his guardian. Jacopo had said nothing as he’d signed it while fat tears plopped down Francesco’s cheeks. Jacopo had handed him back the paper, said _I take no blame for this._ And waved at him to leave. Francesco had tripped to his room where he’d flung himself onto his knees in front of his bed, tears falling and rolling down his hands clutched in prayer. _Mom, Dad, I’m so sorry. Everybody in my family, all the Pazzis, I’m so sorry. It was a history test and there’s nothing more important than my family history because I have to keep it going, I have to be the bank one day. I really want to be a banker. I’m really good at math. I’m sorry I slipped today. I’m so, so sorry. I’ll be good and be the bank. I promise_.

He has never scored less than ninety on a test in any subject since then, and every grade less than a hundred makes him feel like punching his fist through a wall, if not into his own face.

When he was around the same age as the history quiz incident and then a little older, he started turning down birthday party invitations in favor of doing extra credit homework. _Francesco, you don’t need extra credit_ had said quite literally all of his teachers. He asked for it anyway and told the kids that invited him to parties that he _just_ _had too much homework and it’s really hard. I’m really struggling. Sorry_. It didn’t take long for the kids to swap stories and realize that Francesco had turned them down all for the same reason and yet Francesco consistently won end-of-the-year trophies in math and history. _Francesco Pazzi finds homework “_ hard _”?_ He can still hear them whispering behind his back. _Hard. Yeah. Okay. My ass he does._

Memories of recess are all the same. He’s outside, sitting on the grass, leaning against the fence either doing his extra credit work or reading the newspaper. He’s the only kid he knows who brings the daily paper with him to school. Other boys sneak up on him while he’s absorbed in reading and the next thing he knows, there are handfuls of grass and clods of dirt in his lap and the boys are running away from him and yelling “GEEK!”

_Wear it as a badge of honor_ , Jacopo tells him when Francesco has to explain the grass stains on his uniform. _They’re jealous, and it’s because they know you’re exceptional and they’ve no hope of catching up to you. That’s why they run away._

But as Francesco unlocks his dorm room, he knows that he’s the one who’s been running all his life, running further into his head and up a ladder he builds every day, the rungs made of threats he makes to himself. _Don’t get questions wrong. Don’t get too attached to anyone. Don’t feel hurt when people call you names. You’re going to be Florence’s best banker someday, and the road doesn’t end until you get there, and even then it doesn’t end, because you have to stay there._

Get it right. Get it _all_ right. You’ll fail not just tests but at your own life if you don’t.

Forty-nine out of fifty.

He flips on the light, tosses his keys on his nightstand, and throws himself down onto his bed, still wearing his coat, and pulls his face into a pillow, one of his rings pushing uncomfortably into his cheek, but he doesn’t move it. He remembers Guglielmo trying to break the ice tonight by teasing him about his rings. Remembering how he hurt Guglielmo makes him feel bile at the back of his throat. He breathes his own breath back into his nose for a few moments, then sits back up and furiously scrapes his fingernail against the corner of his eye to remove the tear. Forty-nine out of fifty. He shrugs his coat off, taking his phone out first. He shuts it off and tosses it on his nightstand and darts for the drawer, fumbling around until he finds the pill bottle. He shakes one into his hand and dry swallows it even though he knows you’re not supposed to do that, but who’s going to stop him? Then he rolls on his side, facing away from the door even though it’s firmly shut and no one will be able to hear his gasping, short breaths if they pass by.

He gets the pills from a guy he met at the Gay-Straight-Alliance during his freshman year. Or, to be accurate, _outside_ it, as he’d hovered in the hallway by the designated classroom five minutes before the meeting was set to start. Another guy had peeled away from the wall and touched his sleeve, causing Francesco to bodily recoil as his nerves tipped over the boiling point. The guy had let go of him and said _Nervous?_ He’d fished into his backpack and pressed a pill into Francesco’s hand. _On the house, because you’re cute. Hey._ He’d nodded at the door to the meeting room. _I have an idea to loosen you up. Let’s go in there and pretend to be boyfriends_.

Francesco had clutched the pill in his fist and walked away.

He’d caught the guy in the hall outside the room later on (without ever going to the actual meetings), promising to pay for the pills this time, and the guy, still irritated at being rejected, had nevertheless taken him up on it. Francesco has called on the guy maybe every other semester to get his bottle refilled. He doesn’t take the pills before exams or presentations because his nerves fuel him to ace them.

Acing the actual work is easy. Acing the fear of ruining his life with any sort of mistake is the cross he’s nailed to his back. Sometimes in dark hours he lays all the blame on Jacopo, but he eventually only blames himself for continuing to listen to him in his adult years. And worse, that this drive has always been built into him, and he’s never tried to break it. He takes a pill during moments like these when he runs out of fuel when he’s reminded that one day all of the exams and classes and degrees will be over and he’ll be a senior bank official, and, someday, the president. And there will be no greater glory, and he will not fail.

He knows that he won’t. He knows on an instinctual level that he wants this more than anything.

And the thought of not getting what he wants, of not _being_ who he wants, shining and untouchable, is worse than the thought of dying.

As he waits for the shaking to stop, for his heart to stop bouncing up and down up and down up and down up and down, the fear to diminish just enough for _forty-nine out of fifty_ to stop being a wheel that spins so fast in his mind that he swears he can physically see a manifestation of sparks and an angry orange glow from it, he hears the rap of a fist on his door.

“ _Francesco_. It’s Giuliano. Open up. I know you’re in there, I can see the light under the door.”

Francesco stiffens as straight as a board. Of all the nasty surprises of today, this has to be the most bizarre, and he’d almost laugh if he didn’t want to scream so badly.

“Francesco.” _Knock knock knock_. “Open the door. It’s me, Giuliano.”

“ _I know who you are_ ,” Francesco half snaps and half groans.

“You had better let me in because I’m going to keep standing here and saying your name until you do. Francesco. _Fran-ces-co_.”

Francesco holds his pillow over his face and screams silently into it. He had been preparing himself for bad dreams but this is a living nightmare.

“ _Fran-ces-”_

“SHUT UP!” Francesco throws his pillow down, curses himself for what is going to be the worst decision he’s made in anyone’s living memory, and yanks open the door.

Giuliano de’ Medici is holding a bottle of wine and two glasses. He looks smug and Francesco immediately has the door half-shut on him but Giuliano shoves his foot into the gap and it makes Francesco lose his hold on the doorknob just enough for Giuliano to squeeze into the room.

“This is an _I’m sorry_ present,” he announces as he strolls past Francesco. He puts the bottle and glasses down on Francesco’s desk and takes a seat at it, unscrewing the cork and pouring a glass faster than Francesco can blink. “After you left the table when I visually eavesdropped on your phone – that was accidental, by the way, although I know you won’t believe me - I noticed you never finished your glass. Well, I’ve come to remedy that. Even though I don’t actually have the faintest idea if this is the wine you were drinking. I forgot to ask your brother what kind you liked.”

Francesco shuts the door and freezes as he turns around, his heart pausing for a beat. “You talked to my brother?”

Giuliano tilts his head. “Well, obviously. How else do I know where your dorm is? Where’s your roommate, by the way?” He nods at the bed on the other side of the room. “Will he be along? Because this isn’t really a party for three.”

“No. He has a girlfriend off-campus and spends every weekend with her. What does it _matter_ , though? Honestly. Get out.”

“Great. Just us friends, then. We’re friends, you know.” He’s pouring his own glass now. “Or at least I _think_ that’s what your _brother_ thinks. He seemed pretty happy when I asked where to find you.”

Francesco’s heart pulses now. “He did?”

“Anything to coerce you back into the family. Here. Drink up. Party time.”

The situation finally crashes into Francesco’s mind. He’s just let Giuliano de’ Medici into his room when not a minute past he’d been scrambling not to teeter over the edge of his sanity. Talking to Giuliano de’ Medici at all is bordering on insane. Being alone in a room with him is grounds for his sanity card to be revoked completely.

Giuliano looks very at home having taken over Francesco’s personal property and this slots some of Francesco’s wits back into their proper places. He glares at Giuliano. He wants to say _Get out_ again. To mind-numbing shock, what comes out instead is, “Why do _you_ care about me being part of the family?”

Giuliano shrugs and takes a sip of the wine, closing his eyes and exhaling gently. “You can leave the family any time you want. If you’ve even joined it in the first place, which I think you probably haven’t.” He opens his eyes and peers at Francesco over the rim of his glass. “I’m not here to beg you to get along with all of us. But I owe you a bottle, and god knows you need it.” He squints at Francesco. “Your cheeks are splotchy. I was right. You need it. Here. I took the trouble of buying it, bringing it, and pouring it, so would you _take it_?”

Francesco feels the wits he’d been regaining start to slip away again when, to his disbelief, he slowly crosses the room and takes the glass from Giuliano’s hand. He can’t drink from it because he just took a pill, but the solid weight of it in his hand feels grounding somehow, feels better than holding his pillow against his face. He supposes it’s this tiny bit of sudden stability that’s keeping him from bodily hauling Giuliano away and locking the door again, laying down in bed again, stewing in despair _again_.

Then Francesco remembers what Giuliano just said and he feels anger burst through his veins. “Why do you say that I _need_ it? And we are not having a party. I don’t care that you live for them. I don’t.”

Giuliano snorts, then swivels in Francesco’s chair and throws his legs up on the desk, disrupting a pile of papers. “Listen. And sit down, would you? Don’t just hover there. I meant it when I said I’m sorry. You looked miserable and you always look miserable, but you reached a new high tonight, which I didn’t think was possible. And when I saw that you wanted to fling yourself off a cliff over a _bloody one point loss_ on a test, I knew you needed an intervention. And honestly, Francesco, you of all people can’t deny yourself the pleasure of a glass of wine. You’re going to need simple pleasures like that if you’re going to make it in life without keeling over dead from a stomach ulcer before you’re thirty. You don’t know how to hold your own hand, so I’m helping you out.” He raises his glass up to Francesco and then takes another long sip. “God, what is this again?” He looks at the label on the bottle. “I didn’t even realize I liked this one. It was just there at the front of the shop so I grabbed it and-”

Can anger actually pop bubbles in your blood? “Get your feet off my desk. And don’t tell me who I am, or what I need. What does _‘holding your own hand’_ even mean, anyway?”

“Oh, I’m sure you could figure it out if you thought about it long enough.” Giuliano runs a hand through his hair, then grins. “It’s a nice turn of phrase, isn’t it? I thought of it on the walk here.”

Francesco squeezes his eyes shut as hard as he can. When he opens them again, Giuliano is still sitting across from him, feet up and swiveling gently in Francesco’s chair, sipping wine and tapping his fingers on the desk. This isn’t some bizarre hallucinogenic after-effect of the pill. This is real.

And, Francesco realizes through his angry haze, it’s not objectively an entirely unappealing scenario, either. Giuliano, looking beautiful with his cheeks rosy and generously proffering alcohol to Francesco. In any other circumstance, in any other lifetime, it would be fun.

Probably really fun.

Giuliano moves his shoulders up and down in a kind of casual dance move. “ _Partyyyyyy_.”

If Francesco hated this before, he wants to hit it with a shovel and bury it right now. His fists ball up. “Get out of my room.”

Giuliano rolls his eyes. “I’m here. Let’s have a chat.”

“No. Get out and go back to the bar and be bad at trivia and drink something harder than wine. Party with people who actually like it, and like _you_. Do all the things you actually like.”

“You think I like those things?”

“What? Of course you do. If I hear you say the word ‘party’ one more time I’m going to smash that bottle over your head.”

“Yeah? You think I’m actually serious when I say I want to party all the time?“

“I don’t need to be best friends with you to know you would seriously like to party with someone other than _me_.”

“I’m here now though, aren’t I?”

“And I really don’t know why. You don’t even like me.”

“I have literally never said that. We stopped talking when we were kids.”

“And you’ve been suffering so much ever since. I can definitely believe that.”

“Maybe I’ve missed you.”

“Maybe you’re trying to provoke me.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Isn’t provoking Pazzis a Medici thing?”

“Oh, here we go.”

“You started this. Get out of my room.”

“No. I think we need to have a talk. A real one. A serious one.”

“No.”

“We can talk about anything.”

“No.”

“You can pick the topic.”

“ _No_.”

“Alright, I’ll pick the topic.”

“ _No_!”

“I want to drop out of school.”

“ _What?_ ” Francesco’s mind pinwheels and he sits down on the bed immediately, just barely getting his glass down on the edge of the desk before he falls. He thinks his brain might actually have just had a spasm from disbelief. _“What?_ You can’t do that.”

Giuliano licks a drop off the rim of his glass. “You know, actually, I technically _could_.”

“No. You can’t. You only have one year left of your Bachelors.”

“Thanks for the information I didn’t know. Anyway, I said I _wanted_ to, not that I’m _going_ to.”

Francesco feels bizarre relief and his shoulders, which he didn’t realize were tensed, slowly ease up. “You’re not being serious. You’re making this up just to annoy me.” It comes out fainter than he would have expected.

Giuliano swivels again and flicks his pointer finger at him. “Wrong. I’m quite done with all of this.” He gestures around. “In the figurative sense. But I’m not quitting, so calm down and don’t throw up. You’re pale as death now.”

“Giuliano.” It’s the first time Francesco has actually said his name out loud, not just tonight, but in years, more than a decade. It feels bizarre that it came out naturally, but the whole world is off its axis right now. “ _Why_?”

Giuliano puts his glass down and faces Francesco. His tone isn’t flip when he answers. It’s steady, and it’s infused with a kind of gravity Francesco would never have guessed he was capable of. He doesn’t blink.

“I’m only here because it’s expected of me. I have no actual interest in economics, never mind working at the actual bank. Lorenzo has that covered for the future, and he’s a genius, so I don’t need to be doing what I don’t want to do. But it would probably cause my parents multiple heart attacks and Lorenzo would straight up kill me and then revive me and then kill me again if I dropped out. I’m a Medici. I have to be a banker. That’s just the way it is. So I’m told.” He breaks Francesco’s gaze and Francesco notices that his glass is empty now. Instead of refilling it, though, Giuliano slides his legs off the desk and leans back in the chair. “So. Now you know you’re not the only miserable bastard in the family.”

Francesco turns one of his rings around on his finger, shaking his head, trying to stop the motion and failing. “It feels impossible to think of you as miserable.”

“Yeah, that’s what I expected you to say.” Giuliano crosses his legs and tips his head back, affecting a high voice. “‘Giuliano, you can’t be miserable! You come from the richest family and you drink and party and live life to the fullest! You’re the happiest guy I know! You’ve got it made! DROP THE BEAT.’” He brings his head back level and speaks evenly. “Everyone believes that. Even you, I guess. I thought you might be the one person who could clock me. Party party party, that’s all I am.” He rolls his head to the side and meets Francesco’s eyes again. His voice is quieter now. “I really thought you’d clock me. Guess not.”

Francesco pinches the stone of his ring. “Why would you think I could figure you out?”

“What did I just say? You’re miserable too. Anyone who completely loses it over missing one test question is miserable. I used to think you were just cranky, one of those guys who’s moody just for the sake of it, but no, you’re definitely not. Am I making you really nervous? You won’t stop fiddling with that ring.”

Francesco drops his hands away from each other. “I did not _completely_ _lose it_.”

“You definitely did. You swore at me and stormed away. Why else did you leave except to come back here and sulk alone?”

“I wasn’t sulking.”

“No? So what were you doing?”

“It’s none of your business! _I_ am none of your business!”

“Well, you could be, since we’re talking right now.”

“Why did you tell me literally anything you just did?”

“Why do you think I’m talking to you?”

“Is talking to me actually making you feel any less bloody depressed?”

“I don’t know, is talking to me making you feel any less of a bloody anxious perfectionist?”

Francesco’s voice freezes in his throat.

No one has ever actually called him an anxious perfectionist to his face.

And even worse than that, _he’s_ never actually told himself that he is one, even though he has definitely, always, _always_ known. Known it without giving it a name in his mind, and definitely not out loud, and never in his wildest dreams to another person.

Heat clenches up his stomach and a tingling slides down his spine. “I don’t talk to people about this.” The timbre of his voice is shaky and he wants to strangle something.

Giuliano shrugs. “Then don’t talk about it. I’ll see myself out. Thanks for listening to my story.”

Francesco runs a hand through his hair, then jerks it away. “Don’t be dramatic.”

Giuliano chuckles softly. “Says the guy who stormed away from me ten minutes ago.”

Francesco squeezes his eyes shut again and only opens them when he feels actual pain with his eyelids being squished together.

Giuliano leans forward in the chair. “I thought you’d understand,” he says quietly, but not unkindly. His voice is gentle, even. Tranquil.

And then he whips up a storm.

“Listen to me again,” he says with urgency coloring every word, palms flat on the desk. “I have to get this out to somebody. You’re unhappy. I’m unhappy. I do not want to be here. At school. At home. Maybe even in Florence. But you know what’s bad? Really bad? I don’t know what else to do. In any sense. I don’t want to major in anything else. I don’t want to go to school at all. But I can’t imagine my life any other way. I try all the time to think of what I want to do. I come up with all these wild scenarios, like sneaking away in the middle of the night and moving to Milan to be a model. Sandro tells me I’m such a good one every time I pose for him. But I don’t actually want to do that. I suppose people would think I just want to stay at home and do nothing. But that’s not true either. I don’t want to slouch around the house all day, just drinking beer and planning the next kegger and then blacking out and waking up wearing someone else’s shirt. I’ve put a lot of thought into this, you can tell, right? But I do everything I’m expected to do. My family loves what I give them. They love that even though I’m terribly naughty, I score decent grades and am on track to be Lorenzo’s right hand man after graduation. And the one thing I do know is that I cannot bear the thought of not being loved by them. But I’ll also tell you something else.”

He moves the bottle and the two glasses to the side and half-leans up on the desk. “After finals, I’m going to tell them that I don’t want to do this. I’ll assure them that I’m _going_ to do it, but that I don’t want to. Because you know what?” He leans his shoulders so far forward that his chest is almost touching the desk. “I can’t keep this up, letting everyone think that I’m happy, when I am so very bloody depressed, as you put it. And you put it right. So I know a miserable person when I see one, and I thought that maybe, just maybe, if I came and kept you company for a little while, I’d talk to someone who understands and maybe he’d talk to me too. You can’t fix any of these problems, I don’t expect you to have any advice, as intelligent as you are. But maybe you’ll still talk to me. Maybe.” He falls away from the desk and leans back in the chair again and drags the back of his hand across his eyes, shoulders slumping. “But if not, I’ll go.”

Giuliano breathes heavily for a few seconds, looking nearly out of breath after talking so quickly, and then buries his face in one hand. He’s never looked so vulnerable and Francesco almost aches. He assesses the situation. Giuliano de’ Medici has handpicked Francesco Pazzi to spill his biggest secret to. Not Lorenzo, or Bianca, or his parents, or any of his actual friends. He picked _Francesco_. Being a secret-keeper is in Francesco’s blood, but the secrets are always his own pieces of shame, and he guards them like some sort of fierce bird guards its nest. With claws perpetually out for anyone who might stray too close.

In theory, he should be clawing Giuliano within an inch of his life right now for calling him an anxious perfectionist, but the shower of emotions Giuliano has just poured on him makes him retract his claws. 

Because Giuliano is, truly, depressed and miserable and hurting and needing to be with someone.

And because Francesco understands now that it’s a release, as Giuliano pulls his hand away from his face, his eyes burning like a fever but steady on Francesco’s. And a release means you’re talking to someone, it means you’re not alone. A release would be a bursting apart of the blocked channel in Francesco’s heart, a passage for the starving blood to finally flow through. It would mean the loneliness cavern wouldn’t keep dropping stones into the abyss inside him. Maybe not forever, maybe just for tonight, or even a few minutes. But he’s thirsty suddenly, and he can quench it if he just speaks.

Speaks to Giuliano.

Speaks about himself in return for Giuliano’s honesty.

He wants to tear up the nest. He wants to breathe pure air.

Giuliano blinks at him through his fever.

It’s not too late.

“Don’t go.”

Giuliano hasn’t broken his gaze. “What?”

“Don’t go.” Francesco shifts over on the bed and makes space. “Sit.” His insides scream for a moment, _what are you doing what are you doing what are you doing,_ but then what he had a feeling would happen does happen.

He’s given himself a taste of freedom by asking Giuliano to stay. What might a rush of freedom taste like? He needs to know.

And if Giuliano is the person who’s closing up the cavern, so be it.

And it’s good that it’s him, Francesco realizes with a lurch of his stomach. But the feeling settles and he knows it’s true. It’s good to talk to someone who wants to listen, wants to talk to _him_ , and no one else.

Giuliano stares at him, confusion bleeding into shock in his eyes, but he stands up without another word and sits gently on the bed. Very gently, as if he might bounce up and away again at the merest sign of danger. Francesco licks his lips, prepares to take a terrifying dive into the core of himself, but one that makes him want to spread his arms wide, and turns to face Giuliano.

“I think you’re very brave,” he starts, because it seems like it will be easier to start his speech by talking about Giuliano. Holding his eyes isn’t easy, but he tries every second. “I can’t imagine the scene that’s going to take place in your house when you tell everyone. The fact you’re going to tell them at all…I could never. Not to my brother, and certainly not to my uncle. I’m sorry you’re in so much pain all of the time. I’m sorry you felt like you had to lie.” Time to start on himself, and he feels his stomach drop out from under him, but he keeps talking through the feeling of weightlessness, and then he lets it spin him around, into honesty. “But I think you know that I lie every day, even if I don’t say anything, but I’ve never told anyone about my problem. I know exactly what I want. I will do anything to get it. _Anything_. Even if it includes repeatedly throttling myself when I make mistakes.” The word _mistakes_ causes his heart to hiccup and he realizes he’s pressing a ring into his finger and he stills his hand. “I don’t want it to be like that. But I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know how to congratulate myself on what I’ve accomplished because none of it feels like an accomplishment. It’s only what I told myself I was supposed to do in the first place, so I don’t give myself any credit. And when I slip up in any way – missing one test question – I don’t know how to cope with it without hitting myself on the inside. I took an anti-anxiety pill right before you knocked. That’s why I can’t drink your wine. I take a pill when things are especially bad, but they’re not a cure. The only cure would be if I could view perfection as…I’m not sure…something actually _imperfect_ , I suppose, something that isn’t necessary to achieve quite literally anything I want. But I don’t know how. And I wouldn’t be talking about this with anyone, ever, if you hadn’t spoken about yourself to me first. It doesn’t matter that you don’t know what you want to do. You’re very brave that you’re going to tell your family when you know they’ll scream at you. But you’re doing it anyway. No, you’re doing it _especially._ I support you. I honestly do. I understand now why you wanted to talk. Talk to _me_. I know that that’s an honor, now. I wish I could do something for you apart from listening, but I hope you know that I hear you and I want the best for you. And I wish I were as brave as you. I’m frightened. All of the time.”

The words come out whisper-thin but they are decidedly given voice. He feels like he’s carved his heart out of his body and laid it in the air in front of Giuliano, and now Giuliano can do with it what he likes. He could poke it, prod it, tear it. These are all fears that chase each other across his mind, but he knows they’re instinctive and not tailored to Giuliano. He’d be feeling them no matter who he was talking with.

But he already knows Giuliano isn’t going to play with him, isn’t going to pick apart at his heart in the air.

And he’s right. Giuliano cups Francesco’s heart gently as he says, “I wish you knew how much I needed to hear someone else say they were scared. I’m obviously not happy you’re scared. And obviously I wish you wouldn’t beat yourself with a stick when you think you’ve failed. But you could have kept all that bottled up.”

Francesco shakes his head. “You were the one who spoke first.”

“It doesn’t matter, though. You still talked to me. About all your pain. And god, are you in pain. I’d tell you to just let yourself be, to stop being afraid, but I don’t think it works that way. You know, someone saying to you something like, ‘Just stop feeling this way already!’ That’s not helpful. I can’t flip your mind around, change the way you think by just telling you I wish you’d stop wanting to be perfect and be satisfied with what you are, whatever that might be. And that you’d even be happy with it, with yourself. And know that imperfect is fine. It’s too hard to be perfect, so don’t try, make yourself believe that perfect doesn’t exist. I can’t make you, though. But you put yourself through the wringer and I’d pull you out if I could. Just know that, okay? I can tell it wasn’t easy, what you just said. But you still did. Do you know how brave that is? You said I’m brave. Well, you match me then, okay? Know that. God.” Giuliano lies back on the bed and lays a hand over his eyes. “And the fact you know what you want…I’d do anything.”

“It’s alright.” Francesco leans down on one elbow, facing Giuliano. He realizes vaguely that it felt like a natural thing to do, that Giuliano’s words just now have calmed something in him, slowed down something that was whirling furiously but now relaxes into stillness. He feels like the whole rhythm of his being has tranquilized. “It’s alright.” He laughs softly. “Telling someone, ‘ _It’s alright_.’ That’s rich, coming from me. I know. But believe me.”

Giuliano peers up at him from in between his fingers. “I’ll have to believe you.”

“You don’t _have_ to. But I hope you do.”

Giuliano runs a hand through his hair. It looks soft and feathery between his fingers. He rubs at the corner of his eye and his light eyelashes cast a delicate shadow on his cheek. His cheekbones are so high and it’s hard not to want to touch them, feel the soft skin on top and the sharper angle underneath. Watching Giuliano’s hand drag through his hair, Francesco feels something spark in his mind. “What you said about not knowing how to hold your own hand. You meant that I don’t take care of myself. People who take care of you hold your hand.”

“Yeah.” Giuliano turns on his elbow and faces Francesco. There’s a tenderness in his eyes and in the loosely held up corners of his mouth. “Something like that.”

Francesco huffs a small laugh. “You made it up but _you_ don’t even know?”

“Mostly I was trying to see if I could draw anything out of you. And you never stop touching your hands. I’m surprised they don’t weigh you down, the hundred pounds of rings you wear. Why do you like them so much? I mean, I wear them too, but you have it bad.”

Francesco spins one around on his finger, but for once it’s not a nervous fiddling. “I know. My brother called me on it earlier. They make me happy. I’m so unhappy. I need beauty in my life and they’re beautiful. That’s all there is to it.” Then he bursts out laughing, his elbow falling out from beneath him. He falls onto his back, shaking while laugh after laugh peals out of him. He doesn’t even feel self-conscious for some blessed reason.

“What?” Giuliano is sitting up. “What did I say? The rings?”

“No.” Francesco breathes in deeply, like he’s just emerged from underwater. “Just. What are we doing?”

“What? Hanging out?”

“Yes, I suppose that’s what we’re doing. Hanging out and talking about pain. That’s typical of hanging out, isn’t it? I wouldn’t know. I don’t hang out with anyone.” He laughs again. “I was ready to hit you over the head with that bottle.” Then he sits up so he can look Giuliano in the face, finds that he needs to see his eyes, lock them on his own. “But now I can’t stop talking to you. I feel…” He trails off. How to put it into words? He feels a sudden sting of fear in his chest, a fleeting terror that Giuliano won’t feel the same. Where were these thoughts ten minutes ago? But the desire to talk to him bloomed, and it’s still growing, and he’s breathing in a kind of dizzy anticipation. He runs a hand through his hair and goes for broke. “I feel like I healed a little bit, just now.” He blows out through his mouth. “That’s actually terrifying to tell someone. I never thought it would be you.”

Giuliano is looking at him carefully, like he wants something to happen but it’s so precious that he’s having trouble risking it. “I can still go, you know.”

“No,” Francesco says immediately, adamantly.

“No.” Giuliano breaks their gaze and looks down at Francesco’s hands. He moves a little closer to him and then glances up, with a look in his eyes that says he’s taking the risk. "Do you want to talk about other stuff?"

"Like what?"

Giuliano traces his eyes up and down Francesco’s face. “When did you know you were gay?”

Francesco’s heart spins in a dizzy circle and he chokes on a half-cough. Giuliano makes a cringing sound. “Never mind. Too personal.”

“No. It’s alright.” Francesco clears his throat. “What have we been doing except talking about personal things?”

“Don’t say it if it’s too hard.”

Francesco checks his heart. Slowing down from the spin, and now it feels like Giuliano has opened a door in it. He wants to walk inside and see what he can let out. “I knew when I was thirteen. You?”

“The same, actually.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Not gay, though. Bisexual. The only people who know are those at the table tonight.”

“Your parents don’t know?”

“No. And it was terrifying to tell Lorenzo and Bianca at first. I knew they’d be fine with it. But god, I was scared. I don’t know why. It felt like I was undressing in front of them. I take it your uncle doesn’t know about you.”

Francesco picks at a thread on the comforter. “No. Neither does my brother. He’d be fine with it, I know he would, but I don’t like it, so I don’t talk about it. Scared, again.”

“I’m sorry I brought it up, then.”

“Look at me talking about it, though.” He rubs his eyes and then blinks them clear. “So I’m not sorry you did.”

“Why don’t you like it? Do you think it’s some kind of flaw?”

“It’s just one more thing that feels like an obstacle to happiness. So I find a way to blame myself for it, naturally. And to blame myself for the shame.”

“I get it, though. Shame is a beast. I still fight it sometimes, all these years later. It’s easy to feel like you’re existing in a way that’s wrong.”

“It really is. I’m sorry we both know how that feels.”

“I am too. But for real, are you okay with me knowing all of this? I won’t tell anyone.”

Francesco nods at the wall, then realizes that Giuliano deserves to be nodded at. He turns to him. Giuliano is holding very still, as if he isn’t even breathing, like he is genuinely afraid he’s toed a line. Francesco thinks of everything he’s just let out of the room in himself that used to be locked and he smiles. He knows he’s smiling, and that makes him laugh silently, just one laugh, but it’s bright, and peaceful.

“I know you won’t tell anyone. And I’m fine that you know. And thank you for telling me about yourself, too.”

Giuliano smiles and his small laugh mirrors Francesco’s. “We can talk to each other about things. It’s more than that though, isn’t it? It’s something bigger. I don’t know what to call it. But what you said earlier. ‘Healing.' I want that for you. Maybe only a little bit will stick, like you said. But it’s something. And I want to give it to you.” He keeps his eyes on Francesco's, then takes a deep breath.

Francesco feels the air molecules change around them, feels like he's absorbing them and they're humming down his nerves. He feels like he's surrounded with possibilities. And one of them feels the best. One of them feels the most right, and he seizes it with both hands.

He breathes in as deep as Giuliano did and whispers his next words, but they sound lilting. There’s a tone in his voice he didn’t know existed, and it sounds strange, but strange is good. It’s getting better and better. He says the words and he knows he won’t regret them. “Then give it to me again.”

And Francesco will never be sure after that who reached for who first, it happens so fast, he only knows that Giuliano breathed “ _I will_ ” into the kiss.

He’s not completely sure what’s happening, but he’s not lonely right now, so he decides to let it unfold in whatever way fate dictates. Fate being Giuliano, because actual fate is meaningless right now, permanence isn’t relevant, not when he feels warm with blood flow and warm with Giuliano’s arms around him. He holds Francesco close to his body as he kisses him, palms stroking up and down his back. And there’s no fear when Giuliano gently breaks away, takes Francesco’s hand, kisses it, and then removes his rings one by one and drops them gently on the nightstand. “So you don’t nick me,” he explains, even though Francesco didn’t ask, and he gets a laugh out of that. He doesn’t have the faintest idea how to go about this and he says as much as Giuliano lays him back against the pillows and buries his face in Francesco’s neck. “I don’t care,” Giuliano murmurs in between warm kisses, his voice husky. “I could literally not care less. This is your first time? That’s okay. That’s completely okay. God, you’re beautiful. I’ve been dying to tell you that. Do you even know how beautiful you are? I’ll keep telling you until you do. You’re exquisite and you deserve to be told.” He kisses Francesco hungrily one moment and then petal-soft the next. Francesco can’t decide which feels better, so he doesn’t. He just relishes them and knows that heaven exists in the texture of Giuliano’s lips.

Giuliano leans up on his elbow suddenly. He licks his lips determinedly and his eyes are glazed but he holds them still on Francesco’s. “Listen. Please. I don’t want us to do this because of some _us against the world_ reason. I mean, yeah, it is an _us against the world_ kind of mindset that we keep forcing ourselves to live in, but that’s not why we should do this. We should do this because we want to be together, _in this world_ , right now.” He brushes a lock of Francesco’s hair away with his thumb, then cradles his face in both hands. “I wanted to talk. I just wanted to talk. I didn’t expect this. But _I_ feel amazing, and that’s what matters.” Francesco snorts and Giuliano grins and taps the tips of their noses together. “No, really. I do.” He kisses Francesco’s eyelids, the most delicate thing Francesco has ever felt. “I hope you do too.” He runs the backs of his fingers down Francesco’s cheeks.

“I do.”

“‘ _I do._ ’ Makes it sound like we’re getting married.” And the laughs get muffled again as they kiss and touch and hold and roll around. Francesco breathes in pure joy, it’s so new, as if his lungs have been unknown to him, but now they’re expanding with some kind of gorgeous motion, this is gorgeous, Giuliano is gorgeous, everything is happening, absolutely everything.

Sometimes they move slow, sometimes faster, but it’s always with a sweetness and an adoration from both of them for each other. Francesco continues to not know what he’s doing and Giuliano continues to guide him until Francesco moves his hands freely, places his mouth against Giuliano’s skin where it feels right to do so. He doesn’t feel any shame, which is unexpected and so exhilarating he could cry. He doesn’t understand, but he doesn’t need to right now, because he’s letting the winds of the moment that Giuliano creates carry him. And they’re so soothing and thrilling at the same time that he thinks he’ll cry later, but only happy tears, thankful tears.

They never bothered to turn the light off so Francesco sees every movement, every plane of Giuliano’s face, every muscle of his body. At some point they’ve kicked the blankets off and then the sheet and Francesco doesn’t even know where he is in time anymore, he doesn’t know if it’s been ten minutes or an hour. He doesn’t care. Giuliano likes to talk and says, whispers, moans things like, _God, beautiful_ and _God, more_. Francesco doesn’t talk but he loves the sounds of his own sighs and gasps, loves the way they echo in his own mind long after they’ve dissipated in the air. He feels his pulse in his wrists and can’t remember the last time it sped up because he was happy, excited, delighted, and certainly never in rapture. _Rapturous_ is eventually the only word he can think of to describe any of it. For once, there’s a word better than _perfect_ , and it’s so good, it’s so good, it’s so good.

When it’s over, it’s not _really_ over, because Francesco keeps Giuliano’s arm wrapped around his chest and their fingers interlocked. “You don’t have to sleep over,” he whispers.

Giuliano kisses his shoulder. “I want to. My phone is off. It’s staying that way. I don’t care that we have to get up for class. I’m not moving.”

“You can move to turn the light off. Or I could.”

“Okay. No, not yet, stay. Just a few more seconds like this.”

A few more seconds turn into much longer and Francesco has to gently extract himself and leave the bed and turn the light off before tucking himself back into Giuliano’s arms. Giuliano is asleep by now and his gentle and steady breathing keeps Francesco awake, but because he wants it to. He knows he’ll be groggy in the morning but he doesn’t want to switch his mind off yet. He wants to think about everything they’ve done, and everything they’ve said. He replays it all.

“I don’t expect you to be less scared, or more patient with yourself,” Giuliano had said, stroking Francesco’s arm with one finger as they lay next to each other, still breathing a little heavily. “No, don’t say anything yet. I just want to say that I feel healed, too. That’s what you said earlier, that you felt that way, a little bit. Well, I feel that way _a lot_ a bit right now. Not, _you know_ , just because of everything we just did, although that was a huge plus. No, honestly. I’m really grateful for it. Grateful you trusted me with yourself. When we were talking earlier. It wasn’t just talking, was it? It was…what’s a good word…god. _Sharing_. It was sharing. I feel like it’s alright not to feel like I have some great purpose or need to accomplish anything bigger than myself. You know, I don’t even know what that means anymore. What’s bigger than this? I don’t know. Just that it’s alright that I only feel what I feel right now and that’s enough and it’s all I want. Whatever else I end up wanting or not wanting, I’ve had this, and I chose to have it, and so did you, and I’m grateful. You’re here. I’m here. And I’m alright with wanting only that. I’m happy. Let’s do this again soon, yeah?”

Francesco replays it again.

He has no idea if any of the group figured out what the two of them ended up doing, if Guglielmo ever tried to text him or not. He’ll check his phone in the morning and hug his brother and say that he’s never going to ruin any gatherings again, because he won’t. The only way he’ll ruin anything in life is if he regrets doing what felt right at the time, regrets making choices he knew would make him the happiest. And even then he won’t have ruined anything, not truly, because imperfection is something he wants to understand won’t hurt him, because it’s not meant to. There’s no shame in that. Maybe he won’t process all of this right away. Maybe forty-nine out of fifty will keep chafing at him for awhile. He doesn’t expect to wake up with a new mind or a new heart but, as Giuliano said, that’s alright. The future is always there. It’s never too late. Bruises fade and then are gone. He can enjoy not feeling lonely, not feeling the cavern ready to swallow him. He can enjoy feeling like his blood is circulating in the right direction. He can enjoy Giuliano and, by god, has he ever tonight. They’ll have to do this again. A lot. Touching, talking, sharing in every way. And it’s nothing to do with making it perfect, because that’s not the right word. It’s better to say that he’s created something and that he’d rather keep creating than trying to destroy what he thinks of as mistakes. This was not a mistake, and it never will be. This creation is a connection with Giuliano, who wanted this too, and a connection to a sense of peace inside himself that he wants to get used to, that he wants to embrace, that he wants to let grace him. It’s a beautiful thing, and his soul drinks from it. 

**Author's Note:**

> Soooooooo I just really wanted to prove to myself that I could pull this pairing off :x Please don’t dry swallow pills or take them with alcohol. Thank you for reading xx


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